Czytaj książkę: «The Pleasure Principle»

Chapter One

I don’t know quite how it happened, I honestly don’t. All I wanted was a little privacy, a little space so I could have a bit of a meltdown after my boyfriend wrote a detailed essay about our sex life on the aptly named ratemyshag.com. He gave me two stars. One of those was for keeping the lights off.

So there I was, sobbing my rage into a used tissue in the back office, when Cal Bailey walked in and caught me and I discovered that there was something even more humiliating than having my lack of sexual skills described on the internet for the whole world to see, and that was having someone I work for knowing about it.

‘Oh,’ he said, as I dissolved into another crying fit and he stared at my laptop screen. ‘Fuck.’

The irony of it wasn’t lost on me. ‘If only I could,’ I said.

He looked at me, just looked. ‘I’m having a party at mine tomorrow night,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you come?’

The irony of that wasn’t lost on me either. I laughed into my wreck of a tissue, then I realised he was serious. He scribbled his address on a piece of paper and put it on the desk, next to a crystal vase filled with sweet peas, and then he left. I spent the next twenty-four hours talking myself in and out of it.

And then my page on ratemyshag.com reached 248 comments, and I decided enough was enough. Before I could change my mind, I changed my dress and brushed my hair and went to Cal’s house. You see, his parties have a reputation. And in some tangled part of my brain, that tempted me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, wondering what it would be like. Wondering if there was, in fact, a fundamental difference between me and other women. I wanted to know what it was. I needed to know. And I thought that maybe, if I went to the party, I might be able to find out.

I made it inside his front door before I lost my nerve. I stood there, clutching my bag, feeling like a complete outsider, wondering what I was doing. The courage I’d had deserted me, draining away like sand through a sieve. To my left was a sprawling living room, with big squashy sofas and a lovely rug, full of people talking, drinking, mingling, nothing more. A couple of them noticed me, then turned their gazes away. I felt so foolish, so clumsy, so unwelcome. What had I been thinking? No-one really has sex parties at their house. They’re just a story invented by dirty old men, the kind who have moustaches and read Penthouse.

I should have left then. The front door was right behind me. But for some reason, something to do with embarrassment and panic, I didn’t. Instead, I opened the door to my right and darted through it.

Which is how I found myself here, trapped in a room watching two people going at it on the sofa. And by two people, I mean two girls, though they aren’t really girls, more like grown women. And by going at it, I mean kissing. They’re just kissing, I tell myself, as I press back against the wall, back into the shadows. Just kissing. Even if one of them is sat on a man’s lap, and that man has his hand inside her blouse.

You’re intruding on a private moment, Verity. You should leave.

But I can’t seem to make myself move. Like a deer caught in the headlights, I can’t do anything but stand there and stare. And then the door eases open, and someone else comes in. I drop my gaze to the floor, try and press myself even further back into the corner, as if I can hide there. As if I can hide anywhere. I hold my breath, but my heart is thumping so hard I swear everyone in the room can hear it.

Then I sneak a glance at whoever just came in. Oh, god. Oh my god.

It’s Cal.

He’s leaning back against the wall with his sleeves pulled up to his forearms and his dirty blond hair hanging over his forehead and a bottle of beer in his hand. He keeps swigging on it, watching the people on the sofa as if this is perfectly normal, as if he does this sort of thing all the time. Which based on the evidence, he does.

I don’t, though. I once accidentally clicked on a porn site when I was looking up something on my laptop, and I was so shocked that I dropped the damn thing on the floor. It’s never been right since. So I can’t be in here right now, because the chances of me breaking something are increasing by the second, and Cal has a really nice house. I mean really nice. It’s like something out of a style magazine. I know he brings clients here sometimes, to give them an idea of what The Full Package can do for their home. Cal owns it, together with Tasha and Ethan. They handle the architectural side of it, and the building work. I deal with interior design.

I guess I’ve got an eye for beautiful things, which is why this house appeals. And Cal. He’s so very beautiful. And he knows about my page on ratemyshag.com. And he caught me in here. Blood rushes to my face and I clutch my bag tighter, desperately wishing that I could make myself invisible.

I can’t, of course, so I move on to the next thing on my list. I desperately wish that I could make myself stop watching. But I can’t seem to do that either. One of the girls is pretty, with softly curling red hair and pale skin, but the other one is nothing short of beautiful. She has sharply cut blonde hair, and the sort of face that you usually see in women’s fashion magazines. She’s sort of fleshy, but it looks wonderful, and the way the man she is sat on is looking at her makes something inside me curl up and hurt.

My ex-boyfriend never looked at me that way.

Bastard.

I must make some sort of sound, even though I don’t intend to, because I sense Cal move. Shit. Be quiet, Verity. For fuck’s sake, be quiet. I press a hand over my mouth, as if I can hold the sound in, even as I feel another burst of it swelling inside me. Oh god. Oh god. Even though he invited me here, even though I came here wanting to see…this, the reality of it is almost too much for me.

The blonde woman is unfastening the redhead’s dress. She’s doing it slowly, following the line of the zipper with her mouth, as the man caresses her. His hands are still inside her blouse, but it’s clear that he’s watching her every move. It’s also clear, when he takes one of those hands out of her blouse and unfastens his trousers and pulls out his cock, that it’s turning him on, and that I am about to witness something I never imagined, except maybe in the odd out of control dream. I think…I think I’m about to watch them have sex. Actual sex. And I should leave, I know I should, before Cal moves any closer, but I can’t seem to get my feet to move.

Because I want to see them have sex. I want to see it. I want to watch him move her legs apart and slide his cock inside her. The redhead says something I can’t hear over the thundering of blood in my ears, then she pulls off her dress. The blonde leans forward, licks at an exposed nipple, and I think I make another sound, a louder one, because Cal turns his head.

And then he moves closer. Oh god, he’s moving closer. And the blonde is moving, too. In a minute, she’s going to have her head between the other woman’s legs, and I don’t know what I’m going to do if that happens. It’s not that I’m into girls, but I’m trapped in here and I can’t stop looking and everything is so Technicolor and real, and I can hear the rustle of fabric and their muttered conversation, as the tall lamp at the end of the sofa bathes them in a soft, golden glow.

I’m not good at sex, and these three clearly are, and they’re so uninhibited, and the whole scene is so sexy. I don’t know how to do what they’re doing, but they make it look easy. The blonde woman has her knees on the sofa now, and the man is pushing at her skirt. He moves it higher, revealing the tops of her stockings, and the black stripes of her suspenders. Sexy underwear. Just another thing I don’t know how to do.

I can’t stop looking. Not even when Cal moves right alongside me. Not even when he leans his long, elegant length against the wall by my side, or when he says ‘Hello, Verity,’ and offers me his beer.

I shake my head, fold my arms, make myself look at the carpet. I can’t breathe. God, I hope I don’t faint.

‘Enjoying yourself?’ he asks me.

What the hell am I supposed to say to that? Yes doesn’t seem accurate, and yet oddly, neither does no. If I could get some words to come out of my mouth, I suspect they’d be I have no fucking clue. I glance at the door, but it seems so far away, too far away. I lift a hand to my mouth and bite down on my fingernail. I mustn’t look. He mustn’t know that I want to look. Shit, I really want to look. I mustn’t. I can’t.

Cal stares at me for a bit longer, and then he shakes his head and turns his attention back to the scene playing out on the sofa. I risk a sideways glance at him, and then I discreetly slide my gaze back to the three of them. The blonde has her skirt up around her waist now, revealing the luscious curve of her bum. The man is stroking her between her legs, and even in this dim light I can see how wet she is, the flesh of her pussy all plump and glossy. He has his other hand on his cock, and she has her face between the redhead’s thighs. Her shoulders are blocking the rest of the scene, but I can imagine it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Cal smiling. ‘What’s so funny?’ I snap at him, finding the voice I thought I had lost.

‘Nothing,’ he says.

He’s lying, I know he is. I’m tired of being lied to by men. Like my ex, who let me think everything between us was fine, as he secretly plastered our sex life all over the internet. For weeks, I endured the looks from his friends, comments I didn’t really understand, until finally one of them took me aside and told me what was going on.

‘I’m not a prude,’ I whisper, though it comes out far louder than I intended. Fortunately, the trio on the sofa are too engrossed in what they’re doing to notice, or if they do notice, they don’t care. God, I wish I could be like that, could just not care, but at the moment I can barely have an orgasm when there’s only me in the room, never mind anyone else. Even before the whole ‘my girlfriend is so frigid she makes the Arctic look warm’ internet disaster, it was hit and miss. And more miss than hit, if I’m honest.

‘I’m sure you’re not,’ he replies.

‘I’m not!’ Okay, that was a bit too loud. The man is looking in our direction. The blonde, well, she’s too busy. The redhead has her eyes closed, her back arching as she digs her fingers into the sofa and makes a sound. And oh, that sound. It seems to work right through me.

‘Then shut up and enjoy the show,’ Cal says.

‘I…’ I start, and then I stop. If I’m going to convince him that I’m not a prude, that I’m totally okay with this, I’m going to have to act as if I don’t care. I want to be completely comfortable with all this. I want to be able to lean against the wall and drink beer and watch the three of them fuck, because that’s what they’re doing now, fucking. The man is on his knees behind the blonde, her bare bum pressed tight against him. I almost convince myself that they’re pretending, like actors do in films, but then he pulls back, and no, definitely not pretending. He pauses for a moment, his cock half out of her, and the sound I make this time is so loud I know everyone in the room can hear it.

I’m not okay with this. I’m not okay at all. I feel all shaky and strange, and there’s the fiercest throb between my legs, and my mouth is dry. My pulse is kicking hard, too hard, and I’m having thoughts about Cal.

Inappropriate thoughts.

The man tightens his hold on the blonde’s hips, and then he starts to do her hard and deep, slow enough that we get a good view, but roughly enough to make her lift her head and say something that sounds like ‘Oh, god, Scott.’

And Cal is still looking at me. And somewhere between the fucking, and Cal, and my thoughts, it all gets too much for me. I can’t stand here while he laughs at me, while they all laugh at me, because I’m not that comfortable with sex and every time I try it I get it wrong. I am different to other women. There’s no point denying it. I just have to accept it. But god, it makes me feel like something is breaking inside me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, as I shove my way past him on legs that feel like they’re made of rubber.

He catches my arm. ‘What for?’

His eyes are dark, so very dark, so very amused, and I decide that now would be a good time to die. But I don’t. I just keep right on living, right on through the humiliation. Why did I come here? Why did I think it would be a good idea? I’ve ended up more embarrassed, not less.

So I drop my gaze, and when I tug my arm free from his grip, he lets go. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say again, only this time I don’t know whether I’m saying it to him or to myself. And then I rush out of the room, out into the bright glare of the party, and stumble my way towards the front door.